History Commons^™

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Paolo Viti's edited collection In Capitolo di San Lorenzo nel Quattrocento offers twenty one meticulously researched articles focused on biographical and cultural studies of the fifteenth-century canons at San Lorenzo in Florence. According to the books introduction, the goal of the studies is to make a "new contribution to the knowledge of the history of the Laurenzian Basilica and of its canons of the fifteenth century in the fuller and more complex panoramic of the history of the Florentine Church" (ix). The book achieves this goal by offering a wealth of new information about individuals prominent in the chapter of …

Serena Ferente argues that the military and political leader Jacopo Piccinino was at the head of several groups who were on the outside of the Italian League after the mid- 1450s. In this role, Jacopo Piccinino was the last condottiere both to command a base across Italy and to propagate the old filo-French allegiances of several groups in opposition to the hardening of the Italian state system. Ferente bases her claims on an impressive array of contemporary and early modern literary sources combined with a deep knowledge of fifteenth-century diplomatic documents.